Coffee Roasting

Du Jianing of Nanjing, China won the World Brewers Cup Championship in Boston at SCA Expo 2019. Du’s winning routine was remarkable in many ways. The Chinese champion utilized different pouring speeds at different points of the brewing process to highlight certain flavor attributes, and used a tablet linked to her scales to allow the judges to check her technique in real time. Perhaps what was most remarkable, though, was how Du choose to roast her coffee.

The coffee had been roasted in an Ikawa coffee roaster in small batches, 4 days prior to the competition. The Ikawa, which fits in a carry-on sized suitcase, is a bluetooth-enabled coffee roaster that’s controlled with a smartphone app, allowing the user to plot the coffee’s exact profile.

Indianapolis, like most Midwestern cities, is modest but proud. Proud of its history, its speedway, Peyton Manning. I think the same could be said about the city’s coffee community, especially the roasters. None of Indy’s roasters are nationally known, but they don’t need to be. They’re content to roll up their shirtsleeves, put their hands to the plow, and get to work. A growing part of the Indy roasting scene is husband and wife duo Andy and Sarah Hassler, who roast coffee out of their garage under the name of Blue Mind Roasting. I know Andy through a mutual friend (and occasional Coffee Compass contributor), and have been watching their business grow from a distance these last few years. I caught up with Andy over email to hear about their recent expansion.

I think a lot of people dream of roasting coffee in their garage, but you’re actually doing it. What inspired you to start Blue Mind?

Well, interestingly, it was never really a dream of mine. I kind of stumbled into coffee roasting. I always loved drinking it and learning about it, but I never thought I’d be roasting it, let alone roasting it for a living. But after trying it as a hobby, I was hooked. And when other career plans seemed to be taking a turn, it felt like the right time to take a leap of faith and start the business….

If you roast coffee, Rob Hoos likely needs no introduction. His book, Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee, and articles in Roast Magazine have been a lodestar for many aspiring roasters. We caught up with the Portland-based roasting guru to find out what roasters are overrated, what mistakes most roasters are making, and what’s in his cup.

When I think about books about coffee roasting, yours is one of 2-3 that come to mind. What inspired you to write the book?

First of all, you’re kind to think of me in that way. To be fair, it seems like there are only 2-3 books out there! I was mostly inspired to write the book because of the lack of readily available information out there about coffee roasting. I come from a barista background, and seeing how much there was (even early on) related to brewing, extraction, and just really every element of being a barista was set in harsh contrast to the relative silence between roasters. When I originally started working on the experiments that became the basis for the book in 2011 (ish) my goal was to bring much of the openness and collaborative spirit that I had loved and appreciated from the barista side over to the roasting. This paired with the realization that part of what I wanted the roasting community to be sharing (profiling for flavor) wasn’t being shared because it was novel information. The reason for calling it a manifesto is because I didn’t want to be claiming to be the end-all-be-all of roasting, but to establish my observations and the changes I’ve seen in flavor due to roast profile changes….

There are few jobs in the coffee industry as romantic or mysterious as roaster. Traditionally, the tradecraft of the making-coffee darker arts has been a closely guarded secret, passed on from roaster to roaster in old fashioned apprenticeships. Other than a couple of good books, there aren’t many resources available to aspiring novice roasters. Joe Marrocco is helping to change that. The longtime Cafe Imports educator recently moved on to work with Mill City Roasters, but the year-long video project Roasting Concepts is now free to view on YouTube. We caught up with “Roaster Joe” over email in the midst of his busy travel schedule to learn the thought behind the project–and how young roasters can develop their skills.

Over the last seven months Cafe Imports has been releasing a series of videos called “Roasting Concepts.” What inspired the project?

This is a project that I worked on with Cafe Imports over several years. I know that the videos seem very simple and short, but they took a long time to conceptualize, carve out time for and put together. The idea was born out of teaching people roasting at the Cafe Imports headquarters in Minneapolis….

For coffee importers and roasters, sample roasting is a crucial part of evaluating the quality of a coffee. Designed to highlight the intrinsic qualities of a given coffee, a sample roast is traditionally lighter than a production roast. This gives the taster a snapshot of a coffee’s aroma, acidity, and body. The intricacies of consistently roasting 100 gram batches with a conventional sample roaster require years of practice, skill, and maybe even a little luck. The Ikawa Pro Sample Roaster is trying to change that….

Coffee producing countries are beginning to roast and serve craft coffee. We recently came across an exciting new roastery in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic that is introducing specialty coffee to the Caribbean nation. As we learned more we became intrigued by Coral and Edouard, the wife and husband team behindGente de la Isla. Naturally, we felt an interview was in order.

Tell us a little bit about Gente de la Isla. Who are you? What do you do?

Gente de la Isla is a specialty coffee roastery. We also bake our all natural granola and are currently working on developing other breakfast products. Everything is hand made by a small team of 4. We distribute our products via our online store and through 15 small resellers in Santo Domingo. We organize tastings and coffee tasting workshops.

One of the most rewarding aspects of competing in barista competitions is not the moment in the limelight or even the free swag, it’s the friendships one makes with other committed coffee professionals. We were excited to learn one of our barista comp friends just took an exciting new position with Brooklyn’s Variety Coffee Roasters. We caught up with Erika Vonie to chat about working with a new roaster, competing in barista competitions, and the best place to drink coffee in NYC. All photos by Ashley Revell.

Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you get started in the coffee industry?

My involvement in specialty coffee began when I moved to Philadelphia in 2009 and started …

There are few things as humbling as trying to learn how to roast coffee. It might seem simple enough, but it’s a complex skill that very few people have mastered. Thankfully, coffee legend Scott Rao has finally published his magnum opus, The Coffee Roaster’s Companion. The book is the culmination of over 20 years of coffee roasting experience. Don’t be misled by the slim profile, the content is dense enough to engage a seasoned professional while the style is approachable enough for hobbyists. Over the last 9 months, I’ve read and re-read this book. Sometimes with eager curiosity, other times with frustrated desperation. The book is nicely balanced between technical theory and practical advice. Years ago, Rao’s The Professional Barista’s Handbook was formative for my barista career. The Coffee Roaster’s Companion has already proved to be as influential.

Unequivocally, if you have any interest in roasting your own coffee, you should buy this book. You may not agree with everything Rao has to say, but you will find your own opinions sharpened and informed by Rao’s careful thinking. Here are the top five things I learned from Scott Rao about coffee roasting….

The thought has crossed the mind of every serious coffee nerd: Can I roast my own coffee? We’ve debated it enough times that when we first stumbled upon a picture of the Huky 500, we were infatuated. The device looked like something between a hotrod and a spaceship – a vehicle to a new world of coffee knowledge and experience. When we found out roasting guru Joe Marrocco owns and endorses the Huky 500, we didn’t need anymore incentive to empty our piggy banks and place the order.

The Huky 500 is fabricated by Kuanho Li in Taiwan. Mr. Li does not have a website, just an email address. Judging by the serial number on our Huky, that …